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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Tuesday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------InterContinental Hotels Group, up 1.4%. MainFirst started coverage on the hotel operator with an Outperform rating. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------BP, down 1.0%, Royal Dutch Shell 'A', up 0.9%, up Shell 'B', up 0.8%. The oil majors were tracking spot oil prices lower quoted at USD70.85, down from USD71.09 late Monday. Oil prices weakened following remarks from Anton Siluanov, Russia's finance minister, who suggested that Russia along with OPEC is likely to decide to boost production to fight for market share with the US.----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------JD Sports, up 4.0%. The sportswear retailer reported stellar annual results against a struggling UK retail sector backdrop. For the year ended February 2, JD posted pretax profit of GBP339.9 million, up 15% from GBP294.5 million a year ago. Revenue jumped 49% year-on-year to GBP4.72 billion from GBP3.16 billion, helped by contribution of Finish Line acquisition in the US. As a result of the strong set of results, the retailer increased its total dividend by 5% to 1.71 pence per share from 1.63p a year ago. It proposed a final dividend of 1.44p, up from 1.37p in the comparative year ago period. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "JD is living proof that parts of the retail sector is alive and well. Sales continue to soar as it has found the perfect ingredients to keep the tills ringing. It is engaging with customers by offering exclusive products and staying abreast of constantly changing fashion trends."Card Factory, up 3.9%. The greeting card retailer reported a drop in its annual profit, but said it expects to declare a special dividend at the time of the interim results. For the year ended January 31, the retailer posted pretax profit of GBP66.6 million, 8.3% lower from GBP72.6 million a year ago. Revenue meanwhile increased 3.3% year-on-year to GBP436.0 million from GBP422.1 million, driven by a strong online sales performance, up 56%. Like-for-like sales dipped 0.1% during the year, due to widespread high street footfall decline, the company explained. A year ago, they had accelerated 2.9%. Card Factory stores saw like-for-like down 0.5%, with Getting Personal, the company personalised card offering, down 8.4% due to heavy discounting and promotional activity. The company maintained its ordinary dividend at 9.3 pence per share, flat year-on-year after proposing a 6.4p final payout. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Galliford Try, down 19%. The housebuilder and construction company said it will scale back its Construction business which will dent profit for the current year. The company is undertaking a strategic review of its Galliford Try and Morrison Construction businesses, which will lead to a reduction in size of the unit. The company said the unit will instead focus on its "key strengths" where it has a "track record of success". As a result of the review, Galliford expects post-exceptional pretax profit for the year to June 30 to be GBP30 million to GBP40 million lower than current consensus analyst forecast of GBP156 million.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Coro Energy, up 8.8%. The South East Asia-focused oil and gas company said it has completed its payment obligations for a 15% working interest in the Duyung production sharing contract in Indonesia. Coro has now paid USD3.0 million in cash and USD1.9 million in shares as well as contributed USD10.5 million towards the 2019 exploration and appraisal drilling campaign to earn its interest. Coro has issued 60.9 million shares at a price of 2.3492 pence each, meaning it now has 7789.4 million shares issued overall. The drilling campaign in particular will focus on the offshore Mako gas field within the PSC, which according to an independent report on the field has 276 billion cubic feet in 2C recoverable resources and 392 billion cubic feet of 3C resources.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Beowulf Mining, down 7.5%. The miner announced a subscription of shares to raise GBP500,000. The company will issue 8.7 million shares at 5.75 pence each. Shares in the Nordic-focused exploration company were trading 7.4% lower at 6.25p each. The funds raised will be used for general working capital purposes and to support Beowulf's commitment to Vardar Minerals' Kosovan exploration programme, the company explained. Admission of the new shares to trading is expected on April 25, after which the company will have 588.6 million shares in issue. ----------
2 Apr 2024 08:55